Dec 9, 20203 min read

What's my age again?

Even though the real concept behind my capstone is decay, one can not talk about decay without touching on aging. After all, aging sets the stage for decay, as the process of aging effects every one of our body's cells, tissues and organs. Overtime they build up with waste products that they are unable to eliminate, making our cells less able to divide and multiply, and our bodies more ideal candidates for decomposition (source). Of course we're talking really old here. There are also many visual cues associated with aging, like atrophy, loss of tissue mass, the texture of loose skin, etc., that mimic or connect to decay.

To help me contemplate ideas around aging, I read two really great articles. First, the 2009 Feminist Review article, Louise Bourgeois, ageing, and maternal bodies by Rosemary Betterton (source). The second, a 2017 article from the modern and contemporary art (online) magazine Widewall, titled How Does Contemporary Art Deal with Aging? (source). Let's start with Louise Bourgeois shall we?!

One of the things I appreciated about the article Louise Bourgeois, ageing, and maternal bodies, is that Betterton does a wonderful job right off the bat of helping contextualize our modern cultural views around aging, and more specifically around aging maternal bodies. For me, personally, this research was very validating. She describes our cultural view of aged maternal bodies as being anxious and hostile, with "ambivalent responses of fear and loathing..." (source). With this context, it makes the work that Louise Bourgeois made in her later years all the more interesting and meaningful. As Betterton confirms "The question that motivates my enquiry is: why does Bourgeois return to themes of brith and fertility so powerfully in her nineties?" (source). An example of work that Bourgeois made in her 90's is below, titled The Reticent Child. Below is also a portrait of 90 year old Louise Bourgeois taken by photographer Herlinda Koelbl. In this playful portrait of Bourgeois sipping a Coca Cola through a straw, her detest for growing old serenely is on full display. As Betterton points out in her review of Robert Mapplethorpe's 1982 portraits of Louise Bourgeois (then 71), that was the point!

"She uses humour and irony as forms of resistance to stereotypes of aging...The images challenges binary codes that rigidly demarcate old age and sexuality, impotence and potency, sex and gender... Mapplethorpe's photograph is more than a portrait of the artist as an old woman; it is a record of a particular performance of age and gender enacted by Bourgeois herself. Her burlesque upsetting of categories confronts our cultural horror of older women's sexuality and, moreover, through the typology of the Madonna, she connects this specifically with the power of the mother" (source).

This is the theme, that connects a lot of Bourgeois' work. This confrontation about aging, this challenge to what we expect aging to be and look like. This also leads in nicely to the next article I read How Does Contemporary Art Deal with Aging?, which highlights how many contemporary artists are out to challenge these stale and harmful ideas of aging, unapologetically and with pride.

The article How Does Contemporary Art Deal with Aging?, about the art exhibition Aging Pride, also begins by addressing and illustrating the "Contemporary Cult of Youth" that artists like Bourgeois are out to challenge. Since this article was written in 2017, however, the culture it depicts feels more relevant. As described: "With the term anti-aging being thrown around so often, the process of getting older is seen as a deficiency in the public eye. It is perceived as something pathological - as a process that needs to be stopped or reversed" (source). I really value this framing around our culture's view (aging as a deficiency) because of how it connects back to the fact that aging and decay are natural and necessary processes. Again, I can't help but think "how does it affect us as individuals, that we as a society are so disconnected from the importance and value of aging, and are actually ashamed of aging and trying to hide it"? The article also touches on how this view limits the potential of aging, and our cultures' ability to benefit from aging if we embraced it.

"Decay, frailty, loneliness and mortality are becoming synonymous with old age, yet they represent only one small piece in the mosaic. Age is also followed by power, experience, wisdom, contemplation, lust for life, and triumph over societal conventions" (source).

As you let the words above sink in and contemplate the points that have been made, please take a look at the three paintings below, by Aleah Chapin, Eric Fischl, and Maria Lassnig, which were part of the Aging Pride exhibition. Enjoy!

Louise Bourgeois

The Reticent Child

2004